From movie screenings to the DNC, are influencers taking over the world?

Last week’s debate, in which journalists complained about the presence of content creators at the Democratic National Convention, sounds very familiar to us film critics.

One of the more prominent subplots of last week’s Democratic National Convention was some grumbling by some journalists present that influencers, content creators, and other nontraditional media figures seemed to have the run of the place in Chicago. At the same time, more traditional reporters found themselves sitting far away and, in some cases, shut out of the building entirely. One report said that the respected journalist and author Ta’Nahesi Coates was turned away at the door at the convention on its final night.

According to a Reuters report from the DNC, “scores of social media influencers are fighting journalists for access, prestige, and workspace at a national convention this week where the Democratic Party is counting on the influencers' viral online videos to boost Kamala Harris' U.S. presidential hopes,” which added that 200 such creators were credentialed in Chicago, compared to 15,000 traditional media members. 

One particular issue, as pointed out by Reuters? The influencers, who are not bound by any traditional standards of journalistic objectivity, are willing to be more openly pro-Harris and pro-Democrats (a Politico story calls them “The Influencers Stanning Kamala — And Infuriating the Press Along the Way.”)

(I know everyone assumes the press in in the tank for Harris-Walz, but there’s a growing groundswell of people, led by some journalists and even journalism professors, who believe that Trump is such a unique threat that the press isn’t being nearly tough enough on him. And the influencer crowd is clearly on board with this framing. I saw one tweet from a DNC influencer claiming — wildly falsely — that the Harris campaign didn’t start talking about Project 2025 until it became a thing on TikTok. And, of course, the Republican Party has its own, often toxic, online influencer class.) 

For film critics, this story sounds very familiar. 

In the last couple of years, whenever we go to early screenings of significant movies, what used to be the press section seems to have been renamed the “press and influencers” section. Influencers are encouraged to post selfies with the poster and do other things that a professional journalist wouldn’t do.